Manage with an instrument panel.

• Author: Wiesner, Pat
• Position: Training the pilots

IF YOUR COMPANY OR YOUR DEPARTMENT runs like a top, meeting expectations, being where it is supposed to be ... then odds are that you could learn to fly an airplane. Or vice versa (if you are a good pilot you have the skills to run a company).

Learning to fly an airplane in instrument conditions is a real kick.

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That means flying the airplane without being able to see anything outside the machine. The beginner is usually in an airplane in the air, wearing a device on his or her head (called a "hood") that limits what can be seen to just the instrument panel. This is done, of course, with an instructor who is not wearing a hood. And it can be done on the ground in a simulator--but you can understand why that doesn't hold the same amount of excitement. In any case, to get your instrument license you must sooner or later fly a plane with an instructor.

At first you find yourself flying all over the sky.

It's hard to hold altitude constant and maintain heading and airspeed at the same time by just looking at the instruments. The goal is to be able to control heading, airspeed, altitude, climb and descent all by checking a few instruments. You have to become a veritable autopilot in order to pass the instrument test.

Then, when you start to do a little better, the instructor takes away an instrument or two by covering them up. Even with less information, you are expected to maintain perfect control of the airplane without being able to see anything outside, to the point of being able to take off with the hood on and to guide the plane to within 200 feet of the ground with an Instrument Landing System.

As you train for this, you begin to realize that two things become very important and, hopefully, this is where our analogy to business operations starts to make sense.

The first thing you learn is to scan.

Scan is the process of keeping an eye on all the available sources of information without staring or fixating on one or two. Gauges tell you everything you want to know: altitude, rate of climb or descent, airspeed, power, oil temp, etc. But if you spend too much time on one, you'll miss what's happening with the others. A good pilot scans all the instruments, giving each the time the pilot needs to get a complete picture.

The second thing you learn is to make corrections when they are small.

Proper scanning results in a constant flow of error signals to the pilot. As an error is...